“The Christ’s Faith”
R. Michael Allen. The Christ’s Faith: A Dogmatic Account. London: T&T Clark, 2009.
In The Christ’s Faith—which originated as a doctoral dissertation at Wheaton College—Allen offers a constructive theological response to the embattled pistis Christou debate within historical New Testament studies. In line with those who defend the subjective genitive (‘the faith of Christ’), Allen suggests that ascribing faith to Christ is consistent with—and a “necessary implication of”—orthodox Christology and reformation soteriology (2). In the process, he marshals a host of reformed sources to refute Aquinas’s influential argument that Jesus could not exercise faith, for he possessed the beatific vision (cf. 1 Jn 3:2; Heb 11:1). The central pillars of Allen’s argument include a discussion of the extent to which faith is epistemic in nature (Ch. 3). This is followed by an elucidation of a distinctly reformed approach to the hypostatic union, focused on a particular view of the communicatio idiomatum (Ch. 4). Allen then suggests the coherence between his thesis and three traditional approaches (Aquinas, federal theology, and Barth). Most notably, he seeks to argue that St Thomas’s Christology actually requires the predication of faith to Jesus (Ch. 5). Finally, Allen seeks to establish the necessity of Christ’s exercise of faith as a result of “the axiomatic place of faith grounding all other forms of creaturely obedience” (Ch. 6).
In the first chapter, Allen helpfully outlines the recent debates within New Testament studies and contemporary theology regarding the faith of Christ. Although the exegetical debate does not divide along confessional lines, Allen’s outline makes clear that among theologians this is largely a Catholic vs. Protestant debate.[1] Allen provides an illuminating and nuanced methodological outline for his approach, but one is left wondering if it is sufficient to the task, given the broadly ecumenical discussion at hand (i.e. without sufficient hermeneutical groundwork, it will be easy for Barth to prevail over Thomas, simply because the former shares with the author certain reformed sensibilities that the latter lacks).
In chapter two Allen explicates Aquinas’s argument for Jesus’s fourfold knowledge. The key distinction that Allen affirms is that Aquinas speaks of Jesus’ divine knowledge as distinct from his three-fold human knowledge. Ignoring the question of experimental (or acquired) knowledge—for it does not negate faith—Allen takes issue with the concept of Jesus’ infused knowledge because it rests on the Aristotelian priority of act over potency.[2] Further, after outlining Thomas’s doctrine of Christ’s possession of the beatific vision, highlighting especially its eschatological horizon, Allen argues instead for human nescience in Christ (following Mk 3:32 and John Owen’s interpretation of Rev 1:1) , and allocates any superior knowledge to Christ’s divinity. Following this, Allen advances a soteriological argument—through exegesis of Luke’s birth narrative and the epistle to the Hebrews—that the cognitive development of Christ is required for him to be vere homo. He follows Barth in repudiating the Thomistic argument from ‘fittingness,’ characterizing it as the elevation of eschatological hope over the witness of scripture. Unfortunately, Allen fails to address Aquinas’s argument that the beatific vision is necessary to explain the hypostatic synergy and instrumental unity of the two wills in Christ.[3] He also fails to offer a plausible alternative explanation for Christ’s human possession of divine knowledge.[4]
In the third chapter, Allen maintains that the reformed tradition offers a broader definition of faith than Thomas, which eschews the incompatability between faith and reason (or sight). It does so by involving “both mind and will, intellect and aesthetic taste” and is defined as “knowing trust or intellectual fiducia” (103). Allen attempts to demonstrate the broad continuity of this approach throughout the reformed tradition (from Calvin, through the Reformed Confessions, to Barth), and traces its roots to Augustine—particularly in his intimation of the eschatological non-obsolescence of faith. By downplaying the intellectual nature of faith, Allen argues that even were Christ an all-knowing possessor of beatific vision, he could exercise faith so defined (105).
Chapter four consists of a masterful defense and explication of metaphysical Christology and the analogia entis, which highlights the radical transcendence of God and the non-competitive nature of finite and infinite agencies. Allen unpacks the threefold logic of Chalcedon—following Hunsinger’s rubrics of asymmetry, integrity, and intimacy—which is upheld most consistently, argues Allen, through a reformed approach to the communicatio idiomatum. This leads Allen to contend that the Logos assumed sinful flesh in the Incarnation, and he supports this thesis with an adjustment of the doctrine of original sin (understood as original depravity, but not original guilt) and a qualified application of Spirit Christology. The strengths of this chapter are manifold. However, Allen argues for the fallenness of Christ’s humanity on the grounds that his gradual sanctification is the “material ground and instrument” of our own (131). Yet this is much the same as Aquinas’s argument for Christ’s possession of Beatific Vision, and it is exactly the kind of argument Allen dismissed earlier on.
In chapter five, Allen shifts from defending the coherence of Christ’s faith to establishing its necessity. Beginning with St. Thomas, Allen highlight’s the Dominican master’s Christological emphasis on history and dynamism, as well as his participatory soteriology. In light of these realities, Allen suggests that an anthropological emendation—denying the beatific vision to wayfarers—would bolster these two elements by emphasizing the historical life of faith lived by Christ and our participation therein (146–53). Within Federal theology, Allen maintains that the doctrine of Christ’s faith would intensify the similarity between Jesus’ covenantal obedience and our own, thus expanding the possibility of imitatio Christi. In Barth, Allen elucidates and reinforces both a representative and an exemplary function for the Christ’s faith. For all three, Allen argues that the doctrine of Christ’s faith would serve to strengthen the Christological and soteriological link between participatio and imitatio.
In the final chapter, Allen turns to the ethical application of his argument. After arguing that “Obedience pleases the triune God only insofar as it flows from faith in God” (189), Allen develops an approach in which vicarious faith and imitated faith can go hand-in-hand. He opposes those that find an inherent moralization of the gospel in discussions of imitatio Christi and argues that Christians should analogously imitate Jesus’s faith. This imitation has important caveats, such as the recognition that it flows from a preceding grace from God and the provision of the Holy Spirit—both of which were different for Christ—and that it must be triangulated sociologically and dogmatically through the broader witness of the saints.
This is easily one of the best available treatments of the issues involved in this important discussion. Although it leaves me with numerous questions, there are two that are particularly worth mentioning. I am not convinced by Allen’s refutation of Aquinas’s argument for beatific vision, especially in light of the recent arguments of Gaine and White.[5] However, I find his argument in chapter three compelling and it does make me wonder whether faith could be considered compatible with the wayfarer’s vision of God if it were redefined along less strictly noetic lines. Closely related is the other key question: is faith necessarily included in the theological definition of vere homo? Despite Allen’s efforts, I remain unconvinced.
[1] Allen mentions Jon Sobrino (Christology at the Crossroads: A Latin American Approach [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1978]), and Gerald O’Collins and Daniel Kendall (“The Faith of Jesus,” Theological Studies 53 [1992]) as Catholic dissenters on this issue. We might add, most notably, Hans Urs von Balthasar (Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory, vol. 3, Dramatis Personae: Persons in Christ, trans. G. Harrison [San Francisco, CA: Ignatius, 1987], 166).
[2] Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, I.16.
[3] “But the will (voluntas) of the man who sees God in His essence of necessity adheres (necessitate inhaeret) to God, just as now we desire of necessity to be happy (esse beati)” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, Q. 82, a. 2). Cf. White, The Incarnate Lord, 267.
[4] As Allen himself notes, due to divine simplicity, divine knowledge is identical with the divine essence, and therefore cannot be present in the human nature of Christ. It therefore does not in itself make sense of Jesus’ superior knowledge.
[5] White, The Incarnate Lord; Gaine, Did the Savior See the Father?